Dasavatharam - A Review (Read - Venting out of Frustrations!!!)

I am not a movie critic and I do not write reviews of movies regularly. And there may be flood of reviews about the newly released 'Dasavatharam' in the blogworld and I can assure you that all of them may be better than what I am going to write here by any standards. But I just wanted to write, to vent out my frustration of having wasted three hours of my life (not that I would have done anything productive in those three hours!) and lost $16.25 for a story that looked like a cheap imitation of Crash and Babel mixed with some thrilling elements from that despicable Tamil movie called 'E'(am talking about the bio-warfare concept)!

Ok, the movie was not THAT bad, but neverthless expectations took a huge hit during those three hours. It was a typical 'Kamal' movie - made by Kamal for Kamal. The movie was just full of Kamal - sometimes you need to show other characters too, right? Well, one Kamal goes off screen, the next one pops up within five frames! I guess you can't help it when you have 10 'avatars' to be highlighted in the movie.

Asin's role in the movie was to play an 'acharamana' Tam-Brahm girl, who keeps running along with Kamal to escape the baddies and she has played the role to perfection. I am being sarcastic. Mallika I thought had a better role and she was good for the 20 odd minutes she was in the movie. Apart from that, the only good thing about the movie was comic relief by the Naidu character - he was hilarious. Kamal has tried to pull off a Crazy Mohan style comedy which did provide some relief from watching so many Kamals but ruefully though did not reach the standards set for a Kamal movie by the evergreen MMKR! In my opinion, his potrayal of Naidu and the uneducated Dalit was the best among all the 10 characters.

Coming to the makeups - a very good attempt, but unfortunately some of them were really really really bad to look at. Fletcher, the ex-CIA's bulging forehead made it look like his ass was on his face. No kidding! I loved the Japanese character though. The martial arts fight sequence at the end looked very real and 'martial arts'y. If Kamal had done the entire fight himself, then hats off to him.

Though the graphics during the initial part of the movie (the drowning of the Ananthasheshan idol) was a put off, the graphics at the end of the movie depicting the Tsunami was really good by Tamil movie industry standards. A last minute romance between Kamal and Asin at the end of the movie looked like it had been placed there to satisfy a need for romance in the movie. And comeon, romance in the aftermath of a Tsunami attack?!?!?! When hundreds of people had just been killed and whole villages made a wreck?! And it definitely lacked chemistry and Kamal is well known for his chemisty with his heroines.

Well, it would do good for you to expect a movie in likes of MMKR or Panchatantiram. What do you expect when you have KS Ravikumar as the director. I am a HUGE fan of Kamal. I love Kamal's acting. His versatality in acting, potraying different characters is unmatched. And he should stick to that and only that! : He shouldn't venture out to screenplay or dialogues. Didn't Mumbai Express teach him anything?!

Dasavatharam was a great effort by Kamal, but I rue spending 15 bucks for a movie that I have already almost forgotten!

Saramati - Melancholy in Ecstasy!

What is it that makes a particular ragam emote a specific rasa and another raga a totally different rasa? Of course it is the swarasthanas that make up the scale. But swarasthanas make up only the scale and a 'Ragam' in the Indian system of classical music is more than just a scale. A ragam in Indian classical music is a melodic scale, defined not only by the notes it is made up of, but also by other characteristics such as the gamahams (microtones between notes) and most importantly - the swara sanchara that is the defining aspect of the ragam. It even differentiates ragams that have similar if not the same notes. A perfect example would be Thodi and Sindhu Bhairavi. Ever wondered how the ancient Indian texts define a system of 22 notes making up an octave, though practically we know of 12 notes? The answer lies in gamahams - the microtones that is the life of our Indian system of music. More of this in a later post maybe!

Saramati: I heard this ragam the first time at a concert of Sanjay Subramaniam, if I remember correctly and I thought he was singing Natabhairavi, but I was not too sure. Sangeethame Amara Sallapame from the Malayalam movie - Sargam is brilliant piece of work in Natabhairavi, but I think there's a touch of Saramati here and there.

Initially I thought Sanjay Subramaniam was jumping notes which artists usually do. But the 'S N2 D1 M1' and the 'R2 G2 M1 G2 S' routine was coming up too many times!!! And I had heard Natabhairavi at an earlier concert of OST. And the phrases vaguely reminded of a film song, which I later found out to be 'Padariyen...' from 'Sindhu Bhairavi'. A quick googling later I came upon an exquisitely sculpted ragam with an essence that was intoxicating.

For those who are not in the know, Saramati is a janya of Natabhairavi:

Arohanam - S R2 G2 M1 P D1 N2 S
Avarohanam - S N2 D1 M1 G2 S

It has exactly the same notes in the Arohanam as its parent, but with the P and the R2 omitted in the avarohanam. It is this omission that makes the passion in the ragam more prominent along with the D1 and N2. The two phrases which I mentioned earlier are the ones that gives Saramati the touch of pathos yet at the same time makes it brim with ecstasy. Though it contains all the notes from its parent, it is so different from it.

The most popular krithi in Saramathi would have to be Mokshamu Galada, composed by Thyagaraja, set in Adi. Please do listen to a beautiful rendition of the krithi by Lalgudi here.

Ilayaraja also has used this ragam in all its beauty in the song 'Padariyen Padipariyen...' showcasing all the possible nuances of the ragam. He has even shown his cheekiness by adding a touch of Thodi in the second charanam in the line - 'Sonnadhu thappa thappa...'. While I don't mind a sensible 'corruption' of the ragam to add beauty to the song, since this is not strictly classical music to follow 'tradition', what I don't digest is the fact that while Ilayaraja could get away with this, much hue and cry was raised over ARR's 'Ennavale' and others.

What prompted me to write this post, made me fall in love with ragam again is this amazing rendition of the krithi above by the Madras String Quartet. A simple orchestration done beautifully complementing the emotion of the song, blows me away every time I listen to it. Saramati at its best:




It's a pity that there are not many krithis or other compositions in Saramati. I am yet to see a main piece in Saramati - an RTP perhaps. Is that 'cos Saramati is not one of those 'main piece' ragams?! That is yet another debatable topic - which ragams are best suited for the main piece. Maybe another post! :) But till then, happy listening to Saramati.

Remains of A Distant Time, A Distant Land

I am in one of those lows, not of depression of anxiety, but one of nostalgia. Sounds weird? Strangely nostalgia always gives me a low instead of a high. Memories from the past, all happy of course, but memories that reminds of the good old days when life was more easier to deal with, friends all around to give you support and such. Good times those.

Another strange thing is that Ilayaraja songs always makes me a little sad in the midst of all the high I get from listening to his orchestration or bass works. One such song - 'Kadhalin Deepam Onru' sparked off the nostalgia - days of my psenti sem when my sidie and I would sit and listen to all the Ilayaraja classics, trying to figure out the bass lines and admiring Ilayaraja's genius. Good times those.

Vellai Pura - An absolute genius of a song in terms of musical arrangement, a brilliant bass line, and the most amazing lyrics I have ever heard. This song has so many memories: of SKY, rag, fifth year psenti sem, DD, drunken calls and lots.

I am listening to 'Anjali Anjali' from the movie Anjali. This is another classic from Ilayaraja, that always makes me feel that I am soaring up in the sky to be pulled down again and again. Another such song is 'Raja Raja Chozhan'. The orchestral arrangements in Ilayaraja's songs always makes me feel a little low! I wonder whether there's anything wrong with me.

This was another random post. Just felt like writing.

PS: Yesudas' voice is something to die for. Period.

PPS: I have promised myself to write a longer post - a retrospective, reminiscent one and I intend to keep that promise. All in good time though.

Good times those.

A Random Ramble

During my orientation days at Wipro Technologies in the fall of 2005, the bunch of newcomers which included yours truly was asked to put on paper, artistically of course, using contraptions to aid the venture, sketches which had a message we wanted to share with the world. Of course, the stipulation forced us all to come up with a rationale behind the horrendous figures we drew! Not all the drawings were horrendous, but mine most certainly was. For some strange reason, I had come up with a mask with two faces, supposed to show the two personalities that we become as part of leading both of our professional and social/family lives or whatever. And I rambled on about my 'artistic' creation for a couple of minutes before finishing it with a thought that we tend to get busy with our work/professional life so much, thinking about careers and stuff that we forget to take a moment and enjoy the life that we lead, life that goes on around us and that which we are a part of! You would think that I would have got a standing ovation for putting forth to the world, a philosophy that has the right ingredients of being a reality check on your life. But if you thought that, you thought wrong 'cos unfortunately all I got was a one minute silence, appreciating and reflecting upon my thought/philosophy. These orientations are a bore, I tell you! Bleah...

I have rambled on I see, but hey... that is exactly the intent of this post. Dear reader, please don't curse me! :(


It's been five months since I set foot on the American soil to purse my dreams of adding a masters degree as a suffix to my name. A semester is about to get over and it's been a rather uneventful one. Yeah, yeah, yeah...I am not complaining, but it's just that even when your life is an uneventful or a busy-less one, you tend to fall into a rut of laziness. At least I tend to! And in such times, music has been always a saviour, in more ways than one. Ever since I got my 'Neo' after standing in the cold for 6 hours the night before Black Friday sales, I have been on a 'music' hunt on youtube. Youtube is a great place to search for good music, and I always make it a point to put up good videos in my Orkut collection. But I had always felt the lack of an iPod/mp3 player in my life, but all in good time.

There was a startling thing I noticed about the American society - be it the education system or at the work place, the only things I can comment on right now due to my restricted involvement, thanks to my student-alien status. You get recognition for the work that you do, no matter what race/religion/country you are from. You are rewarded for the work you do. At the same time, you get the stick if you shirk. These guys don't give prominence to 'Equal Opportunity to All' for nothing. I call that observation startling 'cos that is what it is to me, coming from a society where importance is given to your religion, your language, your caste and riots break out in a fight for who wants to be called the most backward!!! India has a lot of potential to become a world power, potential in the form of cultural diversities and traditions, potential that ironically though is our major deterrent to development. India in a way is full of racists.

Like I said, the first semester has not been so hectic. As I look forward to the coming holidays, I can't help being amazed at how fast time has flown by. It seems like yesterday when I got my admit letter from NCSU. The trip home for Christmas, a special trip to Chennai to meet close friends after a long time, the trip to Wayanad on New Year's with the Magas. The first half of 2007 was not a pleasant one apart from the fact I got here. But to call the second half of this year, the most amazing time of my life, would be an understatement. I shall try to do justice to my reminiscences in a separate post, which I hope to post before the year is up. A post that is long due.

Signing off...

PS: I have tried my best to get this post to be a true ramble - true to the title, readers may infact rate the sanity (or insanity) of this post in terms of its 'ramblingy' (Is that even a word?! What the hell do I out in here?!) nature. In other words - post a fucking comment, dumb ass! :|

PPS: The Verve - Bitter Sweet Symphony - A must listen!

To my new found motivation for blogging, maybe even a potential muse... :)

Over and Out.

Shakti - The definition of fusion music

I have been wanting to write about the band who I grew up listening to for quite sometime now. Infact, I have been wanting to write more about music and stuff like that, but I have just been darned lazy!

=
Shakti, a band who were as daring with their experimental music as they were just amazing with it. To say that their music was sheer genius would be an understatement. My father had a small music collection which is varied - ranging from Michael Jackson to Nazia Hassan to KJ Yesudas to L Subramaniam(LSu) and L Shankar's Shakti. He had a SONY casette player which he was proud of and would blare out KJY's thodi and other semi-classicals or LSu's Live in Moscow or Shakti's Natural Elements when he would go on a cleaning spree of the house (he was in this 'spree' almost every other day!

I started learning the violin in the summer of 1990 or rather was forced to go for classes as my parents thought it a good hobby for me and Lsu and LShankar's music being the only violin music that we had at home I was drawn to their style of playing early on. Infact during my high school days I would get the player over to my study table and listen to them while I studied. I adored both their music but I always thought LSu's music was more soulful while L Shankar's was peppy and energetic.

Shakti was formed sometime in the early 1970s as a collaboration between L Shankar and John Mclaughlin, who was already popular then as the founder/lead guitarist of a band called Mahavishnu Orchestra, which itself was an experimental band making a new genre of Jazz-Rock fusion music. It was during this time that Mclaughlin met L Shankar at Wesleyan university, the former who was studying the Veena there privately and the latter who was doing his Phd on ethnomusicology. The early lineup of the band included Ustad Zakir Hussain on the Tabla, Ramnad Raghavan on the Mrudangam and TH Vinayakram on the Ghatam and Mrudangam. Ramnad left the band soon, and the rest of the band came out with two albums as a quartet - Natural Elements and A Handful of Beauty.




My favourite album was the a recording of their live concert at South Hampton College, New York, along with Ramnad Raghavan. You can feel the energy in their playing while you listen to 'Lotus feet' or What 'Need Have I...' especially the latter of the two - a brilliant piece in chala nattai if I remember correct, with some peppy improvisations on both the guitar and the violin. The other two were studio recordings and L Shankar has shown in these recordings that he knows how to handle a violin. The man plays with such an amazing dexterity and with a speed that never ceases to amaze me!

And Mclaughlin is no less awesome, his fingers race through the fretboard. He had guitar specially made for playing music that could match the Indian type music - a guitar with fretboard chisseled out to give more foreedom to bend the strings and a set of sympathetic strings stretched diagonally across the sound hole, that he used to give the 'indian' effect to his music. And with two brilliant percussonists, the band defined what fusion music was all about. Shankar's and Mclaughlin's understanding of the other's music that showed in their compositions and their style of playing during the concerts produced a sound that defined the true east-west crossover, the sound of jazz-indian classical, acoustic fusion. Infact, it was more than just east-west fusion of music, it was also a hindustani- carnatic classical fusion with Zakir's tabla complementing Vikku's ghatam!!!

Unfortunately, the band disbanded in the mid, late 70s. There was a reincarnation in the form of Remember Shakti with a differing lineup with Zakir and Mclaughling being constant in the band. Though I have heard their later music, I am and will remain a fan of the early Shankar-Mclaughlin sound.

An article on the band's music, interviews with Mclaughlin and Zakir Hussain.

Pera Ketta Odane Chumma Athirudille?

Aah! I have a knack for posting about things that are old news!!! lol...but my last post got me thinking of all things about the best thalaivar movie ever (don't ask me how the hell that happened, I have a wierd thought process if that would suffice for an explanation!)...Sivaji! Now, some people say 'Baasha' was his best or others say something else. But to me, this was the most stylish he could ever get.

I was a die-hard fan of Rajni when I was a kid. I used to pester my dad to get me video cassettes of Mannan, Guru Sishyan, Mr. Bharat, Muthu - the list goes on - and play in our VCP. I used to gape at posters of his movie when I used to walk to school, push back that hair like the way he does, take my dad's sunglasses and try to put them on with a flick he does with that inimitable style of his. And watching Sivaji, brought back all those memories and I was on a high after the first show.

Rajni was and remains the best entertainer the Tamil Industry has ever seen, none has such a fan following as him. Hope he comes out with something more 'athiradi' the next time. :)

Varta...

Uni(versi)ty in Diversity?

It's been a looong time since I wrote anything here, almost a year infact. I don't expect that being a software enigneer working from 8 am to 9pm, five days a week would suffice to be an excuse for my extreme laziness. Well...bleah! I am too lazy to give an excuse too...so bleah!

But I have felt a sudden inspiration to blog again, but this post might end up being another one of those pointless rants or whatever. So what's been happening in the universe (Phoebe ishtyle) for the last one year? As I sit and think, the one thing that comes all screaming back to me (again Phoebe ishtyle, sorry..I am a big fan!) is the reservation brouhaha that caused a stir for quite sometime. Much has been said and written about this over the last one year and I am not going to write anything that has not been already written, but still this is always and I fear will remain for a long time - a burning issue.

The concept of reservation has been in vouge in our country since the pre-independence days. (It's true! I read up on it sometime back) Sixty years have come to pass and the practice has not been made redundant yet! While the Indian democracy prohibits any discrimination based on caste, creed or religion, the fact that people are clamouring for reservation still is ridicoulous. Narayan Murthy rightly said "We are the only nation in the world where people fight to be called backward rather than forward."

The major pitfall of our democracy is the diversity of the people that make up this democracy, a democracy that is home to a multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, multi-religious society. A politician in such case is forced to view the different ethnic communities primarily as just voting banks. Going on another line of thought, the whole of purpose of reservation when it came into practice was to give a chance to the backward castes - the scheduled caste/tribe - to come forward and be part of a growing and developing nation. Does the responsibility of the government stop with just getting them into a premier educational institution? Should it not also be the responsibility of the institution in such a case to make sure such an under-represented group become competitive? Is it too much to ask to put the institutes themselves under scrutiny? To question them about their role in the upgradation of such backward castes? Or is there a basic flaw with the concept as such? The country's premier institutes like the IITs or the IIMs are accessible predomonantly to the urban and well-educated families, those that have had a good basic primary and secondary education. That should have the place to start with respect to the backward classes. Make good primary education available to them first! And make sure the next generation would be educated and better off that the previous. Such a progressive practice would have yielded better results over time, and the whole reservation concept could have been done away with! But I am sure, somebody must have thought of it, and since that somebody must not have a key player in the Indian political scene, would not have even had a chance to speak out! Whatever!

Just before I left the country to do my masters at the USA, I had an interesting conversation with my Project Manager at Wipro over lunch. The whole team had come for lunch and as usual we were complaining about the bitchy Hosur road traffic and how Bangalore had changed in the past 2-3 years since most of us had first come to the place. To put it simply, the city lacks planning. Again, either that or the crores of rupee that is budgeted to be used for the city goes into the politician's pockets. Or the oppositon party somehow does not allow the ruling party to go ahead with their schemes for fear that people would remember that such development was done by the ruling party and not the others. This inevitable politicization of fundamental needs of the country and the nation's inherent diversity are some of the major drawbacks of our nation and as we cross our 60 years of independence, we need to address these issues if we have to come anywhere close to being a developed nation!

Belated Happy Independance Day everyone!

Can I give you a lift, madam?

Its been a long time that this blogspot has been inactive, and I have only myself to blame. Well, life after getting back to Bangalore has been pretty busy. I have been getting work almost everyday, and being forced to show 9 hours of work per day, and having to satiate the need to orkut, chat alongside , the week runs off pretty quickly.

So, when I found myself without work one fine morning, the immediate thought was to blog. But what the hell do I write about? My creativity and imagination sucks at best! And I am hardly a consummate writer, which has made me think about scrapping off this blogspot most of the time. But at such times, I have a magic formula: there must be atleast, one single soul in this planet who sucks worse than me at this writing stuff. :P Hence, this blogspot stands till now!!!

But coming back to the topic of this particular post, I had been wanting to write about this for a long time now. Better late than never! Yes, I am talking about the very commonly found species in the Indian roads, trains, crowded buses, drunk in cars, bus stops...well, anywhere a female species can be found. The road side romeo, the eve teaser, the can-i-offer-you-a-lift ers, the part time letchers, the full time body feelers...well the names are many. Their acts - all same.

But then again eve teasing is something, and outright harassment is something else. I have always felt that I am hardly the right person to be writing about sexual harassment of women, because I had never come across any such incidents personally or so I thought. Until two weeks back. It was late evening, Sunday. Mukund and I were coming out of Forum, the popular mall in Bangalore to go for a cup of coffee, when we saw crowds gathered near the autos.

And like everybody else, we too joined the crowd and craned our necks to glean information about what was going on. From what we made of it at first, there were what looked like a middle aged father and his two daughters with the auto drivers all clutching a youth with the word 'rogue' stamepd all over his face. Now one of the daughters was about my age, and the younger one looked like a kid, younger than my sister. We both thought the road side romeo, finding hard to resist the pretty elder daughter must have done what he is best at.

Well, these sorts of things happen all the time and we hear about it all the time and thought we would leave, when we saw the younger daughter crying. We found out to out shock that the bugger had touched the poor's kid behind. As I stood stunned to to the sight of the poor girl crying, consoled by her sister and the father screaming at the rogue, "What is your age? And What is her fucking age?..."

As we moved away from the scene, I realised that although we do hear about such incidents frequently we do not tend to realise the effect it has on the victims of such acts. The trauma faced by the victims is something which we cannot realise unless when we are in their shoes. I am not going to write any further on the subject because I feel I am grossly inadeqaute to do so. But there's something I feel, and that is - every father, brother, cousin or male friend of a girl must be aware of how traumatising the whole experience can be for the victim. And I call the girl a victim here, because that's what she is: a victim of a shameless act of crime.

I also realised something else. The incident caught my attention and wanted me to write about it because it had happened to the kid. If it had happened to the other daughter I would have most probably walked away, though a little shocked, saying these things happen everywhere. Now, where does that put me? I honestly do not know.

I am not writing any furher about this. But I am certainly going to link you up with people who have.

Blanknoiseproject is a public forum, where people have come together to fight against this social evil. Do check it out.

I also came across this post.Blatantly honest and thought provoking. This is an article translated from the page article in the Shiv Sena's mouthpiece - Saamna. Now don't take that article seriously. I am sure the fellow who wrote it has never even thought of letching at a woman. Or may be he did, but it was all right becuase he was influenced by the remixes vidoes shown on Channel V!

Do check out this article by Preity Zinta. And finally, when a woman does respond to such a crime, she is invariably made to feel guilty, patronised for all the wrong reasons and the law itself with its inane beuracracy and red tape makes the trauma only more severe.

India can have true freedom only when the woman of its society can walk the streets with their heads held high even at midnight, said the Father of our nation...when our nation got its independence. And 59 years have come to pass. Where do we stand? God alone knows!

And yes, Happy Independence Day.

High on Keeravani and LSD...Distortion and Kalyani

This blog is not dead....yet! Well, I am back after a long hiatus, a sort of a summer mini hibernation if you can call it. The sun has been extremely generous on Pune this summer, belting the city with much vigour while I have been cooling my heels esp for the past three weeks with absolutely no work other than chatting, orkutting, and reading all blogs and the forwards a software engineer is greeted with in his/her mailbox, every morning! And I have been religiously following this strict regime for over two months now that I almost fell into a rut had it not been for forums like Orkut, which paradoxically though has the potential to make a person a net addict. And I have almost become one I think!

With the summer in all its magnificence, what else have I been upto then?Like I said, nothing much other than orkutting and chatting. But thanks to these wonderful forums, I caught up with old friends, made new ones, fell in love with Keeravani (not a girl, duh! - the raga!!!) and LSD - L. Shankar's Double. I got some of his and L. Subramaniam's best music from an orkut friend. I was listening to both the maestros after a long time, that it gave me goosebumps to hear those same tracks I grew up listening. Conversation, Flight of the Bumble Bee, Pancha Nada Pallavi in Keeravani, Who's to Know, Natural Elements....:)

My dad was a music buff in his younger days and had quite a good collection - from MJ to Nazia Hassan to Yesudas to LSu and Shakti. Having started learning the violin at an early age, I had a predilection for Dr. L. Subramaniam and Shakti. Their music mesmerised me, with their speed, the entegetic compositions, and the occasional slow-paced ones. LSu was a childhood favourite and an idol. I wanted to be him, wanted to play like him when I grew up. But in the later years, I have become a fan of L. Shankar too; I think he is a tad better than LSu, but then both are geniuses! More about them later!

I have also been listening to some of Guitar Prasanna's music. Now here is one musician who really knows his stuff; he knows what they mean by 'fusion' of Carnatic and Jazz and Blues. Been listening to a couple of songs from his album ' Be The Change'. I never thought Kalyani would sound so awesome on an electric guitar. The track 'Raga Bop' has Prasanna jamming on Kaapi in acoustic guitar, on top of a jazz based bass line and soft drums alone! The best part is when he changes the rag to Varali and changes back to Kaapi and goes onto play on a jazz scale interspersed with Kaapi. Musical ambrosia! Its been a long time dream to learn jazz. Its one of the most advanced forms of music of the Western world and it would be lovely to learn the basics. There is another track called 'Ta Ka Ta Ki Ta Blues' - very peppy, with light distortion and a mellow saxophone. I get remined of 'Caroline in the City' whenever I hear the sax in this track!

But the pick of the lot is the 'Kalyani Connection'. I am always a fan of any ragam with Prati Madyamam; that periya Ma gives an ethereal feeling to the ragam I feel. The soft distortion on which the lead is played, with acoustic strumming/picking and a melliflous piano in the background, and an acoustic guitar and a piano jam later leaves you with a sense of tranquil and peace.

Though I was never followed his music in the past (been to one of his live concerts when it happened in Pondicherry once, that was when I saw the bass God Keith Peters in action!), I am pretty excited about his new album 'Electric Ganesha Land' a tribute to Jimi Hendrix.

I never meant this post to be a review. Got carried away I guess. lol. So what else have I been upto? Made a trip again to campus, played infront of the BITSian audience in the audi though it was just a bass loop and I had thought I'd never get another chance to play in the audi again, did the usual introspection routines and realised a lot many things about myself, got myself out of an extension of my relocation here in Pune. So well yeah, I have been busy doing everything but work at office and listening to quite a lot of good music, with the usual Floyd thrown in between all this. And oh yeah! Have also been trying to study all those darned Englipis words for GRE! :P If it were not for the music, into a rut I woud have fell. Thank you god, for such lovely music.

Rest in next.

Have a great weekend!

23 and counting....

3:30 pm (approx), Monday, 21st March, 1983 - the beginning of an epic! :P

Tuesday, 21st March, 2006 - 23 years later, life goes on....

23 years of my life and I am thankful for what?

My parents - who gave me something which I cherish the most - my freedom, among many other innumerable things!

My sister - the cutest one can get!:)

My friends - without whom I don't think I can find any inspiration in life.

My music - my passion.

My teachers - who taught me whatever I know, atleast some of them.

And ofcourse, the ONE above, who has been good to me till now. Amen!

I am reminded of Mario Puzo's The God Father, in which the Don, Vito Corloene dying, in the hands of his favourite son, Michael, breathes his last saying 'Life is so beautiful!'. Well, I am not trying to be melodramtic or anything here....but, yeah...Life is so beautiful and indeed it's been good.

No regrets, no worries.

Hope the future is good.

23 and counting...

That's Odd...

I was lying on the bed, thinking about what to for the rest of the day. Well, I had just woken up at 2:30 after having put a nite-out. Had been chatting with friends, read a little bit of LOTR (started again for the second time), caught an early morning episode of F.R.I.E.N.D.S on Zee English, I was in a state of half asleep and half awake, and these are the times I have realised, when the mind is the least sluggish. It races from one thought to another at an amazing speed.

Anyways, there I was, lying on the bed, eyes half shut all kindsa thoughts running in my mind, when suddenly this struck me. Imagine a fast moving car screeching to a halt if you will!

There are seven notes in the saptaswaras (yeah yeah, i know, its called so because there are 7 notes!). But that's not the point.

There are seven colors(basic) in the light spectrum, the VIBGYOR.

There are nine Navarasas.

There are five Panchabhootams.

There are three sub-atomic particles ( I mean the E, the P and and the N).

And there is the holy trinity, the holy trimurti...

Why are they all odd numbers??!! Don't take me for a crazy person, I am known to be a little wierd now and then, but this has been in my mind throught the whole day y'day and today.

hmmm....

:)

Your Personality Profile

You are dependable, popular, and observant.Deep and thoughtful, you are prone to moodiness.In fact, your emotions tend to influence everything you do. You are unique, creative, and expressive.You don't mind waving your freak flag every once and a while.And lucky for you, most people find your weird ways charming!

The World's Shortest Personality Test

Laughter, the best medicine...

I was going through some blogs the other day, when I saw a post in one of them, forgot whose though, about the fortunes which come in ur orkut home page. And I was like what the..?!! I had never noticed those things in my home page in Orkut and the first thing I do when I log in is go to the scrapbook and immediately start firing off scraps to all people! So I ran to my home page to check out mine for the day...

Today's fortune:

You are going to have a very comfortable old age

What the...?!!! This is worse than Microsoft Word which has an irritating habit of correcting your statements with its automatic spell check, Caps at the beginning of the sentence...no line check, and other bad shit, which makes u feel like you are not even an LKG graduate!!! What the hell does a website which provides me with a public forum to make and keep friends know anything about my old age?!

hmm...thoughts immediately went to some of the stupid forwards I have got over the past three months since I joined this IT industry...urban legends, which people sometimes tend to take seriously and fwd to their friends to make them aware of such things...nice gesture, but come on guys, give me a break!

Over the past three months, I have recieved news about the age old HIV blood stained pin kept on the seats of theatres of Paris, people contracting AIDS because they eat pani puri at a pani puri stall (though there are chances of this happening, but remote!), two way mirrors installed in Girl's changing rooms, and the best of them all...ants entering the brain through a man's ears, and the man dying thereafter! I was almost out of my chair when I read the last one!

So I went hunting on the net for such urban legends, and came up with this. Some of them are quite hilarious. Do check it out! Here are some of the samples, the ones I found most funny, not necessarily in the order given.

#1. Man dies in his sleep from breathing in his own farts.

#2. According to a study published in The England Journal of Medicine, "ogling at women's breasts is good for a man's health."

#3. Man attempting to commit suicide by shooting himself in the head inadvertently saves his own life when the bullet excises his inoperable brain tumor.

#4. A mysterious bolt in a bedroom floor turns out to be holding up the chandelier in the room below.

#5. Thief who tries to rob a gun shop is shot dead by those in the store.

Shine on!

Urban Legends - courtesy: http://www.snopes.com/snopes.asp

The Trip back to Heaven...

Man's life has become busy nowadays, almost similar to an ant, although nobody can beat an ant! Not exaclty an opening punch line that. But let me explain. After graduating from college, getting into the corporate industry has made life so mundane. I thought I was good at time management when I was in college, but now I realise that here in this software industry with its innumerable dependencies, time management becomes highly consfusing and requires a rather high degree of diplomacy and smartness.

And yes ofcourse, my time management back during my UG days came at the price of my academics, which I did not care about much then, which but has come to bite me in the ass time and again. But that I am able to handle. All the things for which I placed my academics at the lower rung in my priority during those good old days now has taken a backseat, because of which life has become mundane and a burden you got to carry without knowing the destination or for the path to be trodden. Talk about the wheel turning half a circle!

So I decided to take a break and go to the place where I spent the last five years of my life, then things were much more pleasant! And having two other travel mates in this short trip made it all the more fun. The trip was awesome to say the least. Making a trip back to your alma mater and the joy of seeing people who you spent invaluable and joyful time with is indescribable.

I had planned this trip for 3 mnths and was trying to make a surprise visit along with V and KR. But KR's arrival was known to all. But due to some unavoidable and stupid mails being sent to campus, V's arrival was known to some and consequentially mine was guessed! But surprises apart, it felt great to be just there!

The journey was uneventful. After landing there at 4:30 am on Friday morning (the institute building looks gorgeous early in the morning fellow bitsians!), V and I were just looking at each other and grinning like two school kids who were happy to be at summer camp away from home. Not a good analogy, I know. Anywez.....

V and I having decided to put a nite-out, went straight to the Audi hoping to find someone there. It was locked, and we went straight to 2242-A, messed around a little, flicked some fotos we liked (for reasons I shall not reveal here :P), and having put up a silly message infront of the room, proceeded to wake up the guys and give them the surprise. Worked quite well I must say.

Anywez, the day passed quickly, as the guys were rather busy, being the inaug day it was. People scurring around for Reqos, Red Carpet, Flower Pots, Kuththuvilakku, mattresses, sponz banners, nails, pins, rangoli powder, flask, trays etc etc etc. It felt wonderful as we watched in the sidelines, and tried to pitch in as much as we could.

Then came the show. Simply one of the best inaugral performances Rag has put up in the five I had seen in my life. The depiction of the five elements of nature through the depiction of the navarasas and the stories...exquisite! And the instrumental ensemble to support the theme and the dance...inspiring! Guys, you put up an incredible show! Kudos to all of you. I am very proud of you all!

The concert on the first day was of Neyveli Santhanagopalan's, accompanied by M.A Sundaresan on the violin, K.V. Prasad on the mridangam and Vaikkom Gopalakrishanan on the Ghatam. And ofcourse our very own, Ms. Ramya on the Tambura. :) I was hearing a live cutcheri after almost more than three months and it was quite enjoyable. KVP and Vaikkom were amazing in their thani.

The concert the next day was of Kadari Gopalnath's accompanied by, as usual, Ms. Kanyakumari on the violin and the same percusionnists. I am a big fan of Ms. Kanyakumari, but she let me down during this particular concert. Kadari was brilliant, especially during the RTP which was in Chandrakauns, and playing the swarams in two other Audava ragams in succession - Madhukauns (new to me, but beautiful!), Basanti, though I didn't like the Tanam. And though
KVP and Vaikkom were again really good, they could have been better. A concert is good and a success if everybody who plays a part in the concert is good on that particular day. But on the whole, the concert was defintely enjoyable.

The dance I didn't see, as I was busy with some other friends. And I was happy I got to watch RAF night show also, though unfortunately I had to rush off in a hurry. But since I am going back again for Psenti nite, not much damage done. Pondatti...missing you! :)

The trip on the whole was amazing. I made some new friends. And became closer to some. And got to see the club as it is now, full of enthu and energy, learning and sharing knowledge, the way V and I and the rest of my batchmates had always wanted it to be.

Sangamam '06 was great you guys, Org Comm '06, congratulutions. You guys did a wonderful job!

Kudos to all of you guys, Ragamalikans....Ragamalika ROCKS!

God Bless!

Peace...

Just another post....

The title of the post says it all.I have been an uninspired fella for quite sometime now, uninspired with life and everything around me. My daily routine has become a big bore. I guess the software life could do that to you. That is one of the reasons I haven't been posting anything here for quite sometime now. And ofcourse because I have been busy because of the same software life!

I know the only thing which is constant is change. But bloody hell, this is so not fair. It's like one of God's scheming plans where if anybody is all happy and contented in life...BANG! What happened you ask? Change...Change is what happened. My fate has dictated that I be put in Pune with no friends, no one to talk about music, no one to have sessions with!

Well, I am not that miserable, that is being stupid ofcourse. But being the guy that I am, I hate routine! And in a software life you get lots of that. Routine this Routine that. That Process, This Process. I don't think I will make much of an administrative figure!!!

Well, which profession doesn't have routine you ask? Now, let me inform you of certain ground rules at this juncture:

1. No questions shall be asked to the author of the post.

2. No answers should be expected if questions were to be asked unfortunately, for none shall be given. This is not the BIBLE, where you ask your questions and 'they shall be answered'!

The author, yours truly is most of the time in a confused state of mind and does not know himself what he wants in/from life.

So where was I? So yeah, even if I quit this life, what next?! That question has stumped for sometime now. The What next leads to the next important question - What the hell do I exaclty want to do? That drew a blank too. Music which has been an integral part of my life since childhood is one of the choices, but there are associate questions like How? When? With Who? Even if music were to be a parallel career, what would I want the other parallel career to be?

But this is just the tip of the iceberg. I feel like my mid-life crisis has started way too early. Gawd! Why me?!

PS: If the reader at this point of time wishes to add more the author's confusion, please feel free!

Song for the Moment:

Can you see your days blighted by darkness?

Is it true you beat your fists on the floor?

Stuck in a world of isolation

While ivy grows over the door

- Lost for Words, Pink Floyd

The Band of Boys

The World Wide Web is defnitely a great place to meet and make new friends. I had the oppurtunity to meet a fellow musician through the very popular forum, Orkut. Bharat and his mates from college joined to form a band playing for variuos cultural fest at first, ultimately coming out with an album 'Thee' in which they have worked with the top artists of the Tamil Music industry who have played and sung for the music/lyrics composed/written by these five talented youngsters. I had the privilge of hearing a couple of their pieces before the release of their album recently. Talented bunch of guys. Presenting to you...'Encore, The Band'.

All the best for all your future endeavours guys!

God Bless!

Waiting for the Salary...

Salary Day! Yippppeeeeeeeeeee!

Behind the 'Wall'...

I got this link when I was browsing through the blog world from a fellow blogger. This is for all the Floyd fans out there. Not saying nething more. Just check it out!

THE WALL

The Rock Star of Carnatic Music

No No No. This post is not 'bout any rock star who came to learn Indian classical music and so not certainly 'bout George Harrison or Jon Higgins. It is 'bout one of most prolific vocalists of Carnatic Music of the yesteryears, the one and only GNB.

Sangeetha Kalanidhi G.N. Balasubramaniam shot to fame in his early twenties which was rather late for a vocalist during his time. But shot to fame he did. He became famous overnight. His meteoric rise to fame, the extravagant life he led, and the immense popularity he gained and along with that the envy of certain very prominent of his colleagues and a rather early death is very similar to any average Rock musician I guess and that's the reason for the title.

GNB did not learn Carnatic music the usual way in gurukulavasam as was the norm of the day. His father was a prominent music promoter and used to conduct numerous concerts by eminent artists. GNB grew up listening to all the great music, observing and learning. He used to practice without the knowledge of his father, who was of the opinion that Music was not an apt career for his son, though being a great fan and promoter himself. And thus heeding the wishes of his father, GNB joined for literature degree.

But fate had other plans for GNB. A chance came his way when the main artist for a concert didn’t turn up and the organisers asked GNB's father to depute his son to take the stage. That was all that needed for GNB. There was no turning back after that.

Some of the characteristics of GNB were the fast gamahas laden swarams and the exquisite delineation of ragas. His voice would race away in quick bursts of beautiful and intricate patterns of swarams. He also promoted the Swarabedham during his concerts where he would bring out the facet of another raga within the main raga he was elaborating by singing the second raga using the notes of the first raga itself but by shifting the base note to bring out the second one. Hope that was not confusing! Now contemporaries who were jealous of him saw that as an opportunity and made a big controversy out of it. But GNB prevailed. In present times O.S. Thyagarajan is the big gun who does Swarabedham during his concerts.

Once GNB had caught the attention of the music lovers, numerous concerts came his way which resulted in his constant travels to all parts of the country. These frequent travels coupled with his irregular diet and food habits had a toll on his health. He passed away at an age of 54 which was quite early at that time.

During his heydays, GNB lived life king-size moving houses for the most trivial reasons, living a very extravagant life. GNB was one of the most handsome singers around during his time and women flocked to his concerts just to see him! All this popularity did not go well with some of his prominent contemporaries, who were quite envious of his overnight rise to fame. During the latter part of his career GNB had problems with his voice, when he would be heckled by the loyalists of those contemporaries right during the concert. GNB would be greatly troubled by this and this might have contributed to his declining health then.

GNB has composed many krithis, varnams in various ragams. He had groomed some prominent musicians of the generation next to his. Some of his prominent disciples include M.L Vasanthakumari, Trichur V.Ramachandran among others.

One of my favourites of GNB's is the Abhogi varnam, one of my personal favourites. GNB was truly an inspired genius and one of the leading musicians who gave the Carnatic world some breathtaking music!

It's always a pleasure to write 'bout such titans esp the fav ones. Happy weekend all of you.

Of Fingers and Pointing!

Disclaimer: The post below is 'bout things which happen in my office and is not intended to portray yours truly as an avid gossip monger. So if you get any such thoughts please 'delete' them from your memory. This post is also not intended to hurt the sentiments of any software professional in general. :)

Hello guys! It’s been a long time since I posted anything here. Well, I have been getting work on and off and I am going to be shifted to another team soon which is a bit of a bother 'cos I was just settling down with the present team. For a long time I didn't know what to write 'bout. My mind drew a blank I tried to think of writing 'bout something. Then I looked at my work-life and said Hey! There is so much going on here waiting to be written 'bout. Hence this post.

One and a half months have passed since I became a corporate ass and more than once I have seen how the other corporate asses who work with me behave. Well, I am not trying to make derogatory remarks here 'bout my colleagues but whatever I saw, I thought it ridiculously funny.

Well, there have been umpteen weekly status meetings which have been happening right from the day I joined my team till last Friday. The fact that these meetings are all 'bout a bunch of software professionals right from the Project Manager to the Developers sitting around a table and cribbing 'bout the lack of coordination between the offshore and the onsite teams apart from a million other things and at the end of it all everyone being satisfied that they have made their points however unproductive they may have been, is just another matter altogether. Though the points made may not be entirely unproductive (this is my be-fair-to-all part of my persona talking), there is nothing much done 'bout it after the meeting.

Anywez, I m digressing. Well, these meetings are very funny. Everybody who has responsibility is on the defensive mode right from the word 'GO'. What happened last week was one of the module leads had promised to finish off his module by that Friday, the day the meeting was held. This had come as a surprise and a good news to our PM who had later informed 'bout this good news to his superiors. And imagine his surprise when the module lead told the entire crowd that there would be a delay of 'bout a week or so! The PM was very much shocked; you can empathize with him I guess...I mean he had told his superiors 'bout the promised delivery. But the calm fella that he is, he asked what had happened. There the finger pointing started.

His team had apparently not given him an honest projection 'bout their work deadlines, and when asked at the meeting pointed finger at some of the team, who not having an option had to stutter out lame explanations which ofcourse nobody bought. Seizing the opportunity our team lead started pointing finger at the onsite coordinator who was apparently not 'coordinating' stuff as much as the offshore team would have liked her to do.

And not just during meetings...the team I am in has two modules with leads for both. While both of them are smart, they are at extreme ends when it comes to dealing with the team lead. The team lead in the first place talks a lot, and is kinda aggressive to which my module lead just nods his head; but this is not tolerated much by the other module lead who expects people to be rather precise and to the point. And they both usually end up disagreeing and blaming each other, when the PM finally comes to the scene and makes peace. Though all this happens very discreetly and most people do not notice much (it is either that or they are just pretending, as is the case most of the times!!!) it happens.

Sometimes I feel like I am in the middle of an Ally McBeal episode!!!

Life's been good so far. Getting shifted to another team by this Monday most probably. Hope they don’t shift me from this one!